Mosquito Food

Well everyone, I have made it past my one month here in the Dominican Republic and I am still alive to tell about it! My mom will be so relieved! After spending some time here I have taken the liberty to assign myself an official title: Mosquito food. It seems to me that I am basically the only person who is constantly attacked by the enormous mosquito population that lives in our office, kitchen, sofa, and under our dinning table. As you can probably guess, I have not welcome this title with open arms. Other than becoming a blood bank, I have experienced and learned so much in my short amount of time here.

I finished my spanish immersion classes today after four weeks of studying. I really enjoyed going to class everyday. I recognize that I have learned so much in just four weeks, but I find myself frustrated often because I am constantly reminded of how much I have yet to learn. A lady from one of the groups last week related this experience to having a relationship with God. She said that learning another language was like learning more about your relationship with God because the more you learn and the deeper you go, the more you realize that you still know nothing. I thought that was a good way to put it.

Ever since the earthquake, we have been very busy working on logistics and schedules for all the extra groups that we are taking to the border to work in the relief efforts. My favorite part of this month has been being able to meet so many wonderful people who donate their time to come and serve along side of us. With every group, I meet yet another awesome mentor and friend, and I always end up learning something new. Last week, I learned how to crust chicken with corn flakes! Who would have known. Now that I have completed school, I look forward to working with all these groups and going back to the border. It has been very difficult to stay behind at the house in Santo Domingo and work from here while I finish classes. Everyone wants to be out in the field actually working face to face with all the victims. My short time on the border resulted in making many close relationships with some amazing Haitians whom I have been so anxious to meet again. I heard word from my friend Luke who has been running hospital relations in Jimani that Olson, (the boy from my last entry whose mother was in the hospital) and his mother had received treatment and where now living in a refugee camp that has been set up on the Haitian side of the border. We are told that this refugee camp is for family members to stay who have family in the hospitals as well as a place for recovering stable patients. The organization who is running it has plans to remain open for at least 2 to 3 years for all of those displaced by this horrible event.

As I am typing now, we have had one group out to the border and we have one group working there now. Our groups are split in to different work sites based on what they are capable of doing. Doctors, nurses, and other medical staff work in the hospital while non-medical people have been helping out with patient transport and in the post-operative camps on the Haitian side of the border. In these other two sites, our groups have been working hard to build latrines and showers for these camps. Prior to these building projects, the camp where patients are sent to recover after surgeries held about 300 people and only one shower. Our first group has built five more showers and this second group was planned to build more.

I will be leaving on Saturday afternoon for Jimani and Haiti with the leaders group. I am really looking forward to this trip and I can't wait to be working with the Haitians again. I encourage everyone who is interested and feels called to help to sign up and go. Whether you are a doctor, a nurse, or have no medical background at all you are still going to be used and still going to be ministered to. I hear from many that they don't feel that like can be a help if they do not know medicine, but that could not be further from the truth. One of the most important jobs in this effort is interacting with people. Letting these victims know that they are loved and cared for. Sitting with patients, holding their hands, coloring pictures with orphans and children mean just as much as attending to the physical aspect of this relief. The acute emergency stage has ended, and now people here are beginning to start to understand how to cope with this tragedy. It is a strong spiritual experience no matter where you are coming from. If you are interested go to foundationforpeace.org and sign up. Don't worry about the details, if you are really being called by God to go, then he will prepare the way. Keep your hearts, mind, and body open to the Holy Spirit moving and working through you. Be a vessel.

"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." -Ephesians 2:10